Jon Prideaux was an early Visa Europe employee, joining the company in 1989 at a time when it had fewer employees than BOKU does now. He worked with Visa for 17 years, finally exiting as Executive Vice President, Marketing in 2006 to work with smaller, more entrepreneurial companies like BOKU.

Stuart Neal joins BOKU after six years at Barclaycard, during which time he was responsible for growing their merchant acquiring division, the second largest in Europe with over 300 staff members operating in multiple countries. He is a prominent figure in the European payments market, with specific expertise in deploying innovative point of sale solutions.

Read our full press release on Jon and Stuart joining our team here.

The announcement has certainly captured the attention of a number of media outlets including:

• TechCrunch
• AllThingsD
• VentureBeat
• FierceMobile
• TheNextWeb
• WirelessWeek
• IntoMobile

Among many others. All of our coverage boosted BOKU’s news to #2 on Techmeme for the day as well. Read the full text of our Sprint press release here and our Deutsche Telekom announcement here.

Contactless Intelligence announced that BOKU was a finalist for their Mobile Payment Application of the Year award.  Now in its 5th year, the awards ceremony was held on April 26th in London.

Conference organizers selected BOKU from a host of NFC-based technologies that have emerged in the past year. The organizers had the following to say about the nomination category: “With so much energy going into NFC payment applications for mobile payment solutions, there is a vast number of payment apps available in the market; each with their own distinct characteristics. From mobile wallets to pure payment solutions, the category aims to reward one company for doing the most to bring mobile payments to the mass market.”

On the heels of our Accounts launch in February, its an honor to be recognized for our contribution to expanding NFC technology. Many thanks to the judges for selecting BOKU as a finalist and the BOKU Team for making it all possible.

Check out the interview below.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Ron used the opportunity to follow up on his guest post from the previous year “Why does NFC matter? Does tap beat swipe for mobile payments?” and reflect a bit on the state of real-world mobile payments and NFC in particular.

The title of this year’s piece “The state of mobile payments: No more waiting on NFC” holds particular significance for our company, as we recently announced BOKU Accounts: our new, carrier-distributed mobile payments platform. BOKU Accounts combines the best of existing payments technologies (NFC, cards, and smartphone apps) to create a turnkey solution to enable real world mobile payments today, rather than waiting for merchants and consumers to adopt new technology. Here is an excerpt and link to the full article:

Think of consumers and merchants as two circles in a Venn diagram, with the intersection representing when a consumer with an NFC enabled device happens to find a merchant that accepts NFC payments. The overlap is incredibly small. This isn’t meant to say “NFC will never change the way we pay,” simply that it isn’t here yet.

Given both the incredible potential presented by mobile payments at the point-of-sale and the significant adoption challenges facing the technology, we are left with this question: “Why are we waiting for so many friction-laden events to happen?” Or, put another way, “Why are we waiting on NFC to deliver mobile payments with real value to merchants and customers?”

Full Post

BOKU, the global leader in online mobile payments, announced today that it has secured $35 Million in funding. Investors include New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Telefonica Digital, the growth arm of the global telecoms leader, as well as previous investors. Additional participants in the round include Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures.  The funding will be used to expand the team, broaden infrastructure and continue BOKU’s global expansion that started in 2009.

For more information and details on the announcement, you can read the full press release here.

Like its name implies, MWC is the largest and most significant gathering of mobile industry leaders from around the world.  It is hosted by the GSMA, who represent the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry. Spanning 219 countries, the GSMA unites nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators, as well as more than 200 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset makers, software companies, equipment manufacturers, internet companies, and media and entertainment organizations.We were honored and excited to be a keynote presenter this year, but even more excited that we could share Accounts with the mobile industry on a global stage.

We’re happy to say we did not spend our days taking in the sights and sounds of Barcelona, but spent much of our time on this trip hopping from meeting to meeting, conference room to conference room. The excitement over Accounts from carriers, press, and everyone in between kept us busy from start to finish. With Point Of Sale terminals, MasterCards, and smartphones in hand, we continuously demoed BOKU Accounts, standing out as a lighthouse in an ever expanding sea of NFC-only solutions and mobile wallets. We met with leaders across the industry including carriers, press, hardware developers, and analysts, for whom the reception to Accounts grew more enthusiastic with each demo of our new platform. Fantastic meetings, great people, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world – we couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

We did manage to squeeze in some downtime over late-night dinners around Barcelona. We’d like to thank  all the patient Barcelona locals who waded through our broken Castilian Spanish to point us in the direction of great food and excellent wine.

So, with full stomachs, empty business card tins, and sore feet, we have all made the long journey back to San Francisco, home of BOKU. Mobile World Congress 2012 will always hold a special place in our history as the first stop on our BOKU Accounts World Tour, but it certainly will not be the last. We’re going to continue sharing our product with the world, and as we do, we’ll be sure to share our experiences here on the blog.  Stay tuned.

The video explains it all:

Introducing BOKU Accounts. Smarter phone, smarter payments. from BOKU on Vimeo.

BOKU Accounts was announced in conjunction with MasterCard, meaning you can use your BOKU account anywhere MasterCard is accepted.  Consumers who sign up will receive the following:

• A stored value BOKU Account where the subscriber can add money via credit card, by linking a bank account, or by topping up at a merchant/top up location.
• A prepaid MasterCard for checkout in stores for use anywhere MasterCard is accepted.
• An NFC sticker to put on the back of a feature phone (aka dumb phone) or smartphone.
• A branded mobile app (for Android & iPhone) that ties directly to your BOKU Account providing the tools needed to manage and track your account, offers and loyalty programs.

Merchants who integrate BOKU Accounts will have a targeted marketing channel to attract new customers and easily run loyalty programs with regulars.  It’s now easy to offer your clientele a 15% discount when GPS learns that they’re nearby or a free cup of coffee on their 4^th visit.  Consumers will also appreciate spending alerts informing them of how much they’ve spent on various items this week and will be notified if they’re over budget.  We’ve included some screen shots below.

Also, since the news broke this morning, quite a few folks in the press have picked up the story and run with it, including CNET, The Guardian, Reuters, The Telegraph, Techcrunch, All Things D and others. If you want to read our official press release, you can see it here.

We’d like to thank everyone for their hard work on launching BOKU Accounts.  You know who you are and we couldn’t have done it without you.  Stay tuned for more news to come as we work with MNO’s, Merchants and Customers around the world to further expand the BOKU Accounts platform.

Card and Sticker:

Spending Notification:

Offers:

Convenience

Above all else, convenience is key. By giving consumers an exceedingly simple method of charging goods and services using their mobile number, carrier billing increases the convenience of the purchasingprocess. Friction decreases conversion and frequently users abandon their carts due to the hassles and roadblocks of other payment methods.

Enablement

The penetration of mobile phones (pre and post paid) relative to that of credit and debit cards has a profound impact on consumer behavior across the globe. If a consumer lives in a country where the population is largely unbanked, but have access to a mobile device, a banked solution for many purchases may not be necessary:

• All that is needed is a mobile phone, which five billion people globally alreadyhave.
• You do not need to be one of the comparatively smaller group of two billion people who owns a credit card.
• You do not need a bank account, a line of credit, a debit card, or cash.

In short, mobile payments give credit card-like purchasing convenience to anyone with a mobile phone.

Advanced Functionality

This is where the true potential of mobile payments is unlocked. As Ron Hirson, President and Co-Founder of BOKU, pointed out in a guest post on VentureBeat, performing a transaction via a NFC enabled smartphone housing a processor, a world of apps, a GPS unit, all connected to the internet, gives the consumer access to a wealth of advanced functionality completely unmatched by either cash or credit transactions.

That’s right…BOKU beer is here! Our hero, the “BEER DELIVERY GUY” (easily recognized in the wild by the huge upper case orange lettering on a black jacket), arrived last week with a surprise for the team.

Kegerator? Check!

Kegs o’ beer? Check!

Earth friendly biodegradable beer cups? Check!

Awe-inspired employee gazing upon its magnificence? Check!

The wine club, which meets Fridays, is now fair and balanced with the Beer Club. We are confident that this new office edition will increase productivity, raise morale and ultimately cause us to sign even more partner deals.  That’s the magic of beer.  When asked for comment, BOKU CEO and Chief Beer Taster in Residence (CBTIR) Mark Britto said, “I’m busy.”